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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Town Hall, Upper Street, N1 2UD. View directions

Contact: Mary Green  Telephone: 020 7527 3005

Items
No. Item

8.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Received from Valerie Easmon-George and Maggie Elliott.

9.

Declaration of substitute members

Minutes:

None.

10.

Declaration of interests

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

·         if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

·         you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

 

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

 

*(a) Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b)   Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c)  Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d)   Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e)  Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f)   Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g)  Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

 

Minutes:

None.

11.

Minutes of the previous meeting pdf icon PDF 59 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED:

(a) That the minutes of the meeting held on 23 March 2021 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

(b) That it be noted that, with reference to minute 6 (Scheme Advisory Board – LGPS Good Governance Recommendations) the informal meeting for members of the Pensions Board and Sub-Committee to be held before September to consider all of the recommendations proposed by the Scheme Advisory Board and whether any should be adopted into Islington’s Fund would be arranged when final documentation had been received from MHCLG.

 

12.

Membership, terms of reference and dates of meetings of the Pensions Board and Pensions Sub-Committee in 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 162 KB

Minutes:

 

 

 

RESOLVED:

(a) That the membership of the Pensions Sub-Committee, appointed by the Audit Committee on 25 May 2021, its terms of reference and dates of meetings for the municipal year 2021/22, as set out at Appendix A to the report of the Acting Director of Law and Governance, be noted.

(b) That the membership of the Pensions Board, appointed by the Audit Committee on 25 May 2021, its terms of reference and dates of meetings for the municipal year 2021/22, as set out at Appendix A to the report of the Acting Director of Law and Governance, be noted.

 .

13.

Pension administration performance pdf icon PDF 194 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED

(a) That the performance of the Pensions Administration Team against key indicators, for the period from 1 February to 30 April 2021, including information on complaints and internal disputes, as detailed in the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, be noted.

(b) That the impact of the McCloud/Sargeant judgement on Local  Government Pension administration, as detailed in the report, be noted.

(c) That the numbers of members auto-enrolled into the Local Government Pension Scheme, again as detailed in the report, be noted.

(d) That it be noted that pensioners received the 2021 pensions increase in May 2021 due to resourcing challenges within a key team.

(e) That the passage through Parliament of the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and its implication for the governance of Occupational Pensions, as detailed in the report, be noted.

14.

Pension Fund- Draft 2020/21 Statement of accounts pdf icon PDF 353 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The following points were made during discussion:

 

·       Page 31 – The following sentence at the foot of the page should be highlighted: “* 3-year advance deficit lump sum contribution of £26.9m is included in Islington Council’s normal contributions. The entire amount was accounted for, in previous years it was treated as a prepayment.”

·       Page 21 – line 10  the figure of “10,441” did not appear to have been added in?  It would be helpful if that figure was included elsewhere in future years.

·       Page 43 – paragraph 23  (Related Parties) – final sentence of first paragraph should refer to “Note 7”, rather than “Note 2”.

·       Page 18 – paragraph 3.4 – indicated net assets of £1,665m, whereas page 39 indicated an asset value of £1,377m, indicating a shortfall. However, it was noted that the figure on £1,665m on page 18 was the value of the Fund at the end of March 2021 and the figure quoted on page 39 was a March 2020 snapshot, following a three-year valuation.

 

RESOLVED:

That the 2020/21 draft pension fund accounts, attached as Appendix 1 to the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, be approved, before being audited by Grant Thornton, the Council’s external auditors.

 

15.

Forward Plan of business pdf icon PDF 187 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

 

 

 

 

The following points concerning the Risk Register were noted:

·       It was important for the Pensions Board to know what the risk scores were after mitigation and to know what the scores were in the previous Risk Register for each risk

·       One of the risks mentioned in “Risk Area 1 – Operations” “The provision of accurate reports from payroll” (page 74 of the agenda pack, which attracted a maximum score of 40, whereas the “McCloud Judgment – LGPS Regulatory Changes”, detailed in “Risk area 4 – Regulatory and Compliance” (page 77 of the agenda pack) indicated a risk of 18. It was suggested that the former seemed too high and the latter ought to be higher.   The Deputy Pensions Manager stated that the provision of accurate reports from payroll warranted  its higher score, since the Pensions Team relied heavily on this information.  He suggested that the McCloud risk was a managed risk.

 

RESOLVED:

(a) That the contents of the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, comprising information on forthcoming business for the Board, be noted.

(b) That the “LGPS Current Issues- May” attached as Appendix B to the report and the updated risk register attached as Appendix C be noted.